i have decided im going to delve into the world of acoustic guitar so im looking for some advice when it comes to buying.

i have been playing electric for 7 years but hvae NEVER owned an acoustic.

i dont have a budget in mind yet just looking for pointers on what to look out for, like on electric i would look at the woods used, scale length, electronics, bridge etc so im sure there are certain things i need to look out for on an acoustic.

without having an idea of budget, it's rough to know what to suggest. at the very least, i'd suggest a solid top - all solid back, sides and top if possible. that makes the guitar more resonant and tends to mean better tone. i prefer short scale as it's easier on the fingers and shoulder, but longer scale can mean a little more volume and tauter strings, which can be handy if you prefer tighter strings or like to drop down.

honestly, a lot of acoustic guitar is about personal preferences rather than one guitar or feature being better than another. and a lot of guitar players have more than one type of guitar out of more than one wood, sometimes with different nut widths so that they can use one guitar for one type of music or type of playing or mood, and another for another.

get to a guitar store and play a bunch of guitars, compare like mad, and you'll start to get a feel for what you do and don't like.

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Originally Posted by Skeet UK

I just looked in my Oxford English Dictionary and under "Acoustic Guitar", there was your Avatar and an email address!

My suggestion is FG700MS or FG730S from YAMAHA as pure acoustic. They are the best price/pleasure deal that I've experienced. I'm not a professional but I play more than 20 years. I own one FG700MS for 8 months now and I'm very pleased with it although I wouldn't mind having the FG730S also (hehe).
As for acoustic-electric you really need to get to the guitar store and play the hell out of every guitar since they are all different. Combining acoustic with electronics differs with every single model even if they are the same. Its all about your taste. Sometimes even a low budget acoustic-electric can outperform some higher models - that's a fact.

There are half a dozen good choices in the $300 range, but every one of them will need an expert action job to really make it play well... so you either need to know how to do that yourself, or plan to pay maybe another $200 for that. Still, it's well worth it... you'de have to pay a lot more to get an out of the box guitar that would play as well... and without the action job, you'de be very unhappy, believe me.

yamaha makes some amazing acoustics. id also recommend you try some maton's. crafter had some nice slim acoustics with electric pickups, from what i remember the ones with the tele pickups were interesting, not sure if your after that sort of thing though?

theres really no way to tell with acoustics untill you play them.
do you have a sound in mind your after?

its best not to cheap out on acoustics and buy the best one you can possibly afford.